


don't trust too much your bloom

by sightandsound3733



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Fluff, Indulgent Poetry, M/M, Modern AU, kind of college au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-27
Updated: 2016-03-27
Packaged: 2018-05-29 10:18:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6370975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sightandsound3733/pseuds/sightandsound3733
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alex writes John poetry. John reciprocates the best he can.</p>
            </blockquote>





	don't trust too much your bloom

_ If music be the fruit of love, play on. _

A beautiful excerpt from the bard’s Twelfth Night, no doubt. But not quite a phrase that Alexander Hamilton can agree to. 

Music was lovely. There was no argument there.There were few things better than waking up to John’s lovely voice in the shower, low and husky as he sings _ La Vie en Rose _ in flawless French, or the soft whispered melodies John teased into his skin on late nights (the rough ones when Alexander couldn’t stop, couldn’t breathe, could do nothing but write and write and write and John’s hands were soft and gentle, his voice a soothing murmur as he finally drags them both to bed), or songs laugh-sung into each other’s mouths as they dance, the beat of the club’s house music thrumming through their veins hotly and their bodies press together hotter still… Oh how he loved that. 

Music was great. Music with John was  _ heavenly _ . But the fruit of love? No. 

What he believed to be the fruit of love, was the prose from which the phrase originated. Poetry. 

Alex was unashamed to claim he was a poet. While it was true that a majority of his written work was in academic debate, in long endless strings of prose that paints his beliefs and arguments smoothly on the page, he was quite proud of his skills in other places. 

It was common for him to submit pieces to academic journals, to the school’s monthly writing portfolio, and the campus newspaper for publication. He liked to see the words in print, even if he wrote under a pseudonym for the hell of it (Publius was quite popular after a time). Alex enjoyed the anonymity with his poetry, he enjoyed the honest reactions from those closest to him when they read it, all without knowing who they were paying their compliments to. 

It was especially fun to hear Jefferson of all people give his work praise, he always had to smile back his smugness with when hearing that. 

The praise aside, nothing was a better feeling than the day he won John over with his words. Alex sneakily slipped a poem into his friend’s and roommate’s notebook before class one day, years ago now, one that regaled the beauty held in the curve of his mouth, the sunshine that hides in the twinkle of John’s beautiful eyes. He compared the warmth John inspired within him to the rushing heat of the Indian summer, one that lingers long and deep, that colors with the whirlwind of autumn’s beauty and the sweet song of the changing seasons. Every word burned with honesty, passion and love. Simple, pure, true love. 

Never had words come to him more easily than when they were used to profess his love and adoration for his Laurens.  

John loves the poem, practically has tears shining in his eyes when he comes to find him later that day (what was now their anniversary. Alex personally thought this was more important than all the holidays rolled into one). He’s speechless, and Alex is all too happy to accept the passionate kiss the comes instead of words. 

Alex knows that John loves his poetry, knows it, cherishes it, and holds that knowledge close to his heart with pride.  And he’s not afraid to use that knowledge to his benefit. He may or may not occasionally leave an errant notebook (one of many) open on the kitchen table some mornings, casually displaying a page littered with stanzas of the firmness of John’s torso under his hands, the press of glass cut hips rutting against his own, kisses that fit like puzzle pieces and burn like flames. 

The way John presses him against the nearest surface and kisses him breathless in answer, teeth and tongue avid participants, as his boyfriend’s capable fingers knot themselves useless in thick, dark hair, is more rewarding that all the praise and smugness he gets from a Publius publication. 

“You’re very appreciative of the poetry,” Alexander laughs, the sound lost in a soft keen as John hauls him up on top of the counter one morning, boxes him in while lips find his neck. 

“You’re so not subtle about leaving it around,” is the murmured reply. Alex just laughs again, head tilting back and into John’s attentions at his neck. “You think you’re fooling anyone?”  
  
“No idea what you’re talking about,” Alex murmurs, eyes slipping shut as a hand finds it’s way under his shirt, pressing first to his side and then there’s pressure at the small of his back. John’s got calluses just on the edge of his fingers from his work in the gym with Hercules. Alexander feels like singing as they move against his skin. “Glad you like them…”  
  
“Of course I do,” John growls, pulling back to catch his gaze. Alexander’s breath catches in his throat when they do lock eyes. John’s beautiful gaze is intense, rimmed dark in a way that sends a jolt of tensioned heat straight through him. “You… your words do things to me that I’ve never thought possible.”  
  
“That is the goal, babe,” The laugh that comes isn’t cruel, but it’s a tease.”To get you breathless and needy with my words. Why else would I write them down for you to see?” John meets his smile warmly and leans in to kiss him with one of his own. Alex’s arms wind around John’s neck, he whines into his mouth when John presses closer, ankles locking behind his lover’ back.   
  
He wants this, wants John to push them down, take him apart and make him shake, shudder, break… but they had class within the hour, on the uptown campus. They’d never make it to the lecture in time, not with all the New York foot traffic and they couldn’t afford it again. Not after walking in half dressed to Washington’s lecture the week before. He’d never quite seen anything close to a blush on the veteran professor’s face before, but there had definitely been a pink hint of color touching the man’s cheeks when he saw the bitten red marks blossoming fresh on Alexander’s neck that day.   
  
Alexander shivers as John’s fingers curl tighter in his hair. He hates himself for what he’s about to do. “John…”  
  
“I know,” John murmurs, tearing his lips from Alexander’s, kissing messily along his jaw even still. “You don’t have to say it, I know, we don’t have time, I just…” The words come in a breathless rush, needy and wanton and _god_ **_yes_**. Alexander loves knowing he did this, he brought his strong, confident man to the brink of losing control like this.   
  
“Just what, my Laurens?” Alexander can’t help but murmur, nosing at John’s cheek, just curling his fingers in dark curls, the lightest amount of pressure. John’s eyes flutter shut at it. “Use your words. Or have you gone speechless because of mine?”  
  
“Oh dear boy,” John whispers in response, his lips curling into the fondest of smiles. “ _Have you no pity on me? You’ll force me to die at last._ ” 

The words are smooth and flawless, they move to an unheard cadence and Alexander smiles.    
  
“Quite a line of prose, my dear,” He murmurs, tugging on those captive curls just hard enough to get John’s eyes fluttering open. “Perhaps I should expect a poem in your hand sometime in the future.”   
  
“Yeah, not gonna happen,” John laughs, shaking his head. He leans in for another kiss, this one shorter, sweeter. The heat between them simmers still. It never quite goes out, always ready to spike whenever one of them was to feed its hungry flame. They pull apart, John helping him down from the counter with a smile. “You’re the writer here, Alex, let’s keep it that way.”   
  
“If you say so. We’ll finish this later,” Alexander promises, winking at John with a tease of a smile leaning up to steal one more kiss before he pulls away, already slipping into a familiar whirlwind of gathering up his books and things needed for the day.    
  
He hears John chuckle as he too falls into step and a simple warmth falls over him as they leave their apartment together, hands threaded together happily. Damn good start to a day. 

They make it to Washington’s class with minutes to spare, earning a roll of the eyes from their professor as they slip into their seats at the back of the lecture hall. Alexander smirks when John ducks an almost bashful smile, hooking their ankles together under their desks.    
  
Alex barely gives any thought to John’s whispered line of prose from that morning the rest of the day. Why should he? It was a passing moment in the rush of another day, just another sweet moment in his life with John. 

And then suddenly he’s in English, and the words are staring back at him from the screen of his laptop.

_ Have you no pity on me? You’ll force me to die at last. _

The exact words John had murmured to him that morning, phrased exactly, in the middle of a poem from Virgil. Alexander blinks, trying his best not to visibly zone out as his focus narrows in to only those words. 

John knew Virgil? More importantly, John knew Virgil well enough to apparently quote from the middle of a poem. Alexander scrambles back to the top of the poem, reading it more carefully, paying more attention to the detail. His professor drones on with the lecture, Alexander has completely stopped listening. What on earth could be more important than this?   
  
It’s a love poem. One of scorned love from a shepard to that of his beloved Alexis, but one of a deep, fervent love all the same. Heat prickles at Alexander’s cheeks as he reads what Corydon has to say for his beloved Alexis, even when laced with bitterness, what ardor was held in these words. 

That heat that prickles slips deeper into his veins and Alexander has to bite hard on the inside of his cheek to stymie any further reaction. Good god this was something he needed to explore. 

The words run through his mind on an endless loop all day, and he moves through a haze. What other poems did John know, or was it just the one? Was he as adept at Virgil’s other work? Would John recite it to him if he asked?   
  
God he hoped so. 

It’s a testament to his self control that he manages to stay quiet on the matter until they’ve fallen into bed for the night. John is soft and pliant against his back, his arms wound securely around him. Alexander smiles as he buries himself into his boyfriend’s warmth.    
  
“So,” Alex murmurs after a few moments of them just curled against each other. All the work he still has to complete is muted at the back of his mind. It had been a late day for John at the hospital’s clinic, and as the lowly intern he’d been buried down in scut work. Those were the days that Alex made sure to be in bed with John, right at his side to help wind him down from the day. “Do you really think me scornful?”   
  
“What?” John asks, shifting back just enough to allow Alex to turn in his arms. “What the hell are you talking about Hamilton?” There’s a confused crease between his brows. Alex can’t help but laugh as he leans up to steal a kiss.    
  
“If I’m your dear Alexis then that places you are the poor scorned Corydon, no?” He prompts softy, murmuring sweetly against John’s lips. “ _ Have you no pity on me? You’ll force me to die at last... _ Remember?”

Silence falls between them as John processes his words, broken only by a beautiful smile blossoming on his lips. “You know Virgil?”

“Barely,” Alexander laughs, shaking his head. “Not nearly as well as you apparently do, Laurens.” He smiles, warm and soft, his hand resting on John’s chest. ‘Not enough to slip a quote into random conversation.”   
  
“Wasn’t sure you’d catch that,” John chuckles, kissing Alex’s forehead. “And no. You’re anything but scornful, Alexander. But I love you as deeply Corydon claims to love Alexis.” That earns him a kiss and John laughs into it. 

They linger in that moment, kissing without much aim or intention, just happy to share each other’s warmth and love. Alex is the one to break it, to shift so his head is resting on John’s chest. Fingers comb through Alexander’s hair and he sighs into the feeling, smiling. He presses a kiss to John’s collarbone.    
  
“Do you know more?” Alex asks after a few more moments of silence.”More than just the one verse, I mean.” John hums, in either acknowledgement or confirmation, Alex isn’t sure. Nothing follows and Alexander is about to question him again when John starts to speak, voice soft, barely above a whisper. 

“ _ O lovely boy, come here: see the Nymphs bring for you _ ,” John’s voice rumbles in his chest against Alex’s ear. His breath catches, audible, he knows John hears, but he doesn’t falter in the poetry. He speaks at a steady cadence, his words sure, like an actor reciting lines for a performance.  _ “Lilies in heaped baskets, the bright Naiad picks, for you, pale violets and the heads of poppy flowers… _ ”

His heart skips a beat with every soft word of prose. John continues, never faltering in his rhythm. Gentle fingers card through his hair, careful of any knots or tangles. “ _ I’ll gather quinces, pale with soft down and chestnuts _ ,” John shifts, tapping once at Alexander’s hip, just sharp enough that he knew he was to move off his chest. Alexander doesn’t fight the silent direction, too drawn by his lover’s words. 

“ _ I’ll add waxy plums: they too shall be honoured, _ ” John graces him with the most beautiful smile, his eyes set twinkling. “ _ And I’ll pluck you, O laurels, and you, neighbouring myrtle. _ ” He eases Alexander down, laying him flat on his back in the tangled mess of their bed sheets. Alexander watches, rapt as John settles between his legs, hands resting innocently at his thighs. He swallows dryly, tries to settle the sudden fluttering in his belly.    
  
“John,” he manages, voice nothing more than a choked whisper. This was so much more than he ever could have anticipated. He’d always loved John’s voice, the warm, husky tones, whether raised in song, or thick with laughter, or warm and heavy with love. But this… oh this was something new entirely. 

John’s voice was almost a rasp, a reverent husk of itself, and the words came so easily to him, they practically dance off his tongue. These words, thousands of years old, with thousands of other speakers who used them, wooed with them, were his now, given to him by John, with love from John. “ _ John _ ,” he says again, his lover’s name almost a gasp as heat pools where the fluttering has now gone wild. 

The only response he gets is a quirk of a smile, John leaning to hover over him, press him into the bed. Fingertips brush his cheek and Alex shivers, eyes fluttering shut. Oh this was heavenly.    
  
He cannot see now, doesn’t need to to envision the smile John presses to his cheek as he continues. “ _ Since, so placed, you mingle your sweet perfumes _ _.  _ _ Corydon, you’re foolish: Alexis cares nothing for gifts _ .”   
  
“No,” Alexander agrees, voice catching on a gasp as John’s fingers tease under the loose shirt he’d long liberated from his boyfriend’s closet. Not that John minded, he did so love to see Alexander in his clothes. Almost as much as he loved to see him in nothing at all. Those fingers skirt higher, dance along his skin and Alexander is leaning up to strip the shirt off before John even has to pause in his words.    
  
A laugh chases the poetry, causes the first hitch, the first stumble over the phrase  _ “Ah, alas, what wish, wretch, has been mine?”  _ That is the only minor hiccup as John leans down to kiss Alex, quick and warm before his lips move lower, the words never stop.    
  
Alexander lays back, stretches out on the bed under John, tries not to keen when those whispered words are pressed into his neck, his shoulder, the dip of his collarbone. He opens his eyes and looks down, finds himself looking at the mess of dark curls he so loved, feels John mapping out the words into his skin.    
  
He imagines he can see them there, those sweet words, tattooed in the wake of the path John, his beautiful boy, trails down his chest. 

“ _ Yet _ ,” John pauses with his lips against Alex’s ribs before he moves, shifting so he’s properly straddling Alexander’s thighs. His breath catches around a moan as there’s a slow, drawn out roll of hips against his. John grins, hands planting themselves to curl in the comforter on either side of Alex. He shudders when their gazes lock.  “ _ Love burns me: for what limits has love _ ?”

“John,” Alexander manages again, and it’s a whine this time. He reaches to get a firm hand tangled in those curls, pulling for just a moment. He grins, swears he sees John’s universe of freckles grow under the influence of his own sprawling smile, he’s stunning, beautiful, his. _Mine, he’s mine_. The hand moves to cradle against his cheek. “Oh, I love you, John,  _ querido. _ ”

“ _ Ah, Corydon, Corydon, what madness has snared you? _ ” John continues, as though Alex had never spoke, even as he leans into the touch. “ _ Your vine on the leafy elm is half-pruned. _ ” He turns into Alex’s hand, presses a kiss to the center of his palm sweetly. Alexander's heart soars. “ _ Why not at least choose to start weaving what you need… something out of twigs and pliant rushes? _ ”   
  
For the first time, John seems to falter. He stops himself, too abrupt to have reached the last stanza of the poem. Alexander watches with baited breath as his Laurens moves up, stretching out over his body and takes his face in his hands. They’re nose to nose, foreheads resting together, breathing the same air. Alexander tucks an errant curl behind John’s ear, a silent prompt and plead to continue.    
  
“ _ You’ll find another Alexis, if you are so scorned _ ,” he whispers eventually, voice spiked with an edge of something new. More than love, more than warmth. Alexander couldn’t quite place it, but it almost tasted like disbelief.   
  
The final phrase rings with a finality the others lacked, one that John punctuates with a fervent kiss. Alex doesn’t swallow back his keen as John presses against him. His body is heavy and hard over his own and it’s just what he wants, needs.    
  
“Could never find another,” John whispers into his mouth between kisses. “Never. You’re the only one for me, Alexander, I hope you know…”   
  
“You’re mine,” Alexander gasps. John rolls their hips together again, punctuating his promise and Alexander can barely see straight. “Oh love, you’re mine, I’m yours. You have me, no one else.”   
  
They’re lost for a few moments, doing little more than rutting against each other and sinking into desperate kisses. Whispers of love pass between them like it’s all they need to breathe and Alexander feels as though he’ll never need to come up for air again. When they do break apart it’s with breathless laughter.    
  
“Sorry,” John murmurs, not so much kissing his cheek as pressing his mouth against the arch of Alex’s cheekbone. “Got a little carried away there…”    
  
“You’re not the only one,” Alex smirks, pointedly pressing his hips against John’s. They’re both half hard, locked together in the still burning heat of the moment. John laughs, just as breathless as before.    
  
“You liked hearing the poetry then?” He asks, voice almost sweet, innocent. Alexander kisses him, leaning up to close the brief space between them sinks his fingers deep into his hair once more and grips tight. John groans, he drinks it down eagerly.    
  
“What do you think?” Another burst of laughter between them, punctuated with more sweet kisses. John grinds his hips down in a small, controlled circle, inspiring another groan, but Alex clings to his clarity. “I loved it. I want more of that. Talk pretty to me, John.”   
  
“More Virgil?” John asks, smiling at him like Alexander holds all the answers in the universe. Alex squirms pleasantly under that gaze, under the still heavy weight of his love and lover. "Or have you had enough?"   
  
“Do you know others?” He asks, letting his arms hang more loosely around John’s neck, draping them there. “Share with me your repertoire, I'm sure it's more than just Virgil." A grin, teasing and so warm. "I think the only way to top what you just gave me is if you knew the original Latin.” He laughs, fully expects John to join him. When his laughter is left as a solo instead of a chorused duet he looks to John and blinks. He’s smirking. The barest, most delicious turn to his lips.    
  
Alexander’s mouth goes dry.   
  
“I… you don’t know the original Latin… do you?”   
  
John chuckles, Alexander feels as though he can relax, for just a moment, and then there are lips at his ear and the sweetest chorus of angels whispering to him, ripping a shiver down his spine.    
  
“ Quid autem vobis videtur."

**Author's Note:**

> So a lovely friend recently told me that John Laurens was particularly fond of quoting Virgil in letters. Which you know. Makes one of our favorite Revolutionaries a huge nerd. Also super gay for quoting the Eclouges. Nothing new there though. 
> 
> God I love him. 
> 
> Latin translation for "Quid autem vobis videtur"- What do you think?
> 
> Find me on Tumblr @secretwritinggetaway.


End file.
